


two birds in the hand

by jonphaedrus



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Multi, gen deserves it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8941582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: “I am very good at difficult things,” Gen replied, and Irene started to laugh.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plalligator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plalligator/gifts).



> happy yuletide!

“This,” said the King of Attolia, from where he was currently upside down with his ass in the air and his head between his knees, on the floor, “Is not what it looks like.” He was shirtless, had lost his hook somewhere, had only one boot on, and his hair was an absolute rat’s nest.

Eddis very, very slowly folded her hands, and stared down at her cousin with the absolute calmest expression she could muster. “And what,” she replied, “does it look like?”

Gen’s face took on a curious expression; one of deep thought. He sat there for several minutes, unmoving, until he finally scratched his chin and rolled his eyes all the way back over to look at her from under his knee. He did not seem inclined to move.

“Like I got kicked out of my own room?”

Eddis smiled at Gen like you would a very stupid, very petulant, and very annoying child who you had found doing something they were absolutely not supposed to be doing, without permission, in the middle of the night. He looked a little sour: that was a look he had been blessed with all his life. “Eugenidies,” Eddis said, patient as the day was long, “Why did you get kicked out of your own room?”

“Well,” he replied, opened his mouth, and then paused. “You know, I’m not sure I know.”

Eddis wanted, very much, to poke him in the eye. But there are some things a Queen cannot do to a King ( _many_ things) and one of those was bend over and poke him in the eye. Her patience was a thing of saints; she should have ballads written about it. She should have gotten an award. Instead, she lifted one dainty foot, hiked her skirts up above her knees, planted her heel precisely in the middle of his ass, and shoved him the rest of the way over until he gave a muffled yelp of pain and fell onto his side with half his limbs going the wrong way. “Helen!”

“No,” Eddis continued to shove his butt up into his face, “Don’t ruin this for me, Gen. This is the most fun I’ve had in months.” He was trapped under her foot (he could have gotten up if he had wanted to, but he didn’t appear to actually want to) and flailing his arms and legs like a particularly ungainly spider, making a mess of his clothes as he wiggled about helplessly on the floor. “I could spend all day like this. I want to make sure I never forget it.”

At that moment, the door to the King’s bedroom opened, Irene silhouetted within. She was in only her nightgown, long black hair plaited over her shoulder, and behind her stood Costis, the guard looking chagrined and flushed. “Oh!” Eddis perked up, still shoving her cousin’s face into his own thighs as he vainly wiggled. “The court intrigue grows! Costis, found in the Queen’s bedchamber, with the King flat on his ass outside. Thrown him over at last, Attolia?”

Irene looked down at Gen, who was swearing.

“He was being a pest,” she replied instead. “That looks like tremendous fun.”

“I got here first.”

“Anyway,” Irene bent over to look at Gen, whose face was flushed red with indignation and who still had his hair everywhere, “Your Majesty, we have deigned to decide that you will be allowed back into the bedroom, given that you keep your hands to yourself.”

“I’m being assaulted,” replied the petulant king on the floor. Irene smiled, beatifically.

“You deserve it.”

 

 

It took ten minutes for Irene to brush all the tangles and dirt out of his hair, during which Gen bitched and moaned every step of the way, until she resorted to yanking none-too-gently just to aggravate him. “You got it this messy all by yourself,” she said, the third time he tried to propel out of her hold. “You can’t complain to me because you got dirt in your hair throwing a tantrum.” Gen grunted and tried to melt in her arms, becoming heavy and boneless, and Irene sighed. “Costis, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course,” the guard replied, came over to the bed from where he had been sorting something at the dresser, and put his hands on the King’s thighs to pin him down. “I would sit on you properly, but I think I would squash you.”

“Thanks,” Gen replied, drily, as Irene hooked her elbows under his armpits and continued to clean his hair. “I’m not _that_ small.”

“You are,” Costis said. Without the king wiggling Attolia was actually able to finish brushing his hair out, and it was only as she glanced up to plait it for sleep that she realised the reason that Eugenidies had stopped trying to get away from her was that Costis had pinned him with hands on his thighs and then started to kiss him, leaning forward over the edge of the mattress with Gen’s head tilted up into him, their foreheads pressed together. An unorthodox way of getting the King to do as he was told, but one that worked nevertheless.

It took Irene letting go of Gen’s arms, so that he fell back sprawled into her lap and Costis toppled after him with a grunt, ending up with his chin in the middle of the king’s chest, that alerted them both to the fact that she was done. The two men looked up at her, a mix of chagrin and arousal on both their faces, and Irene leaned over, kissed Eugenidies slow and sweet until his fingers were grasping at the front of her dress, pulling her closer, even as he hooked his elbow around Costis’ neck and dragged him up as well.

“Starting without me,” Irene murmured into Gen’s lips, as she wrapped a proprietary hand around the back of Costis’ neck, enjoyed the little hot noise he made into the underside of Gen’s pectoral. “I could have you both executed for treason.”

Gen laughed, and Costis made another of those little noises.

“Well,” said the King, smiling up into her mouth, his canines catching on her lower lip, “We shall just have to talk you out of it.”

“You’re welcome to try.” He laughed, and kissed her again, and kissed her, and kissed her until Irene was dragging him up onto her lap, Costis sliding onto the bed after him, pinning the king between both of them and mouthing a hot line over Gen’s shoulder where his collar was riding down. “It may be,” she gasped, hooking her fingers into her husband’s hair, “More _difficult_ than you thought it would be. I am notoriously hard-hearted, you know.”

“I am very good at difficult things,” Gen replied, and Irene started to laugh.


End file.
